Monday, July 14, 2008

Tony Snow, Dick Cheney, and Bush   [Byron York]

My story on the legacy of Tony Snow at the White House is here.  As I was writing it last night, I went over the day's commentary about Tony, as well as some of the criticisms Tony had directed at George W. Bush and the White House before he became spokesman.  Putting the two together, I was struck by something Dick Cheney said on Fox News Sunday.

Tony was the guy who had said, before joining the White House, that George W. Bush had "become something of an embarrassment" to Republicans running for office; that he had "lost control of the federal budget and cannot resist the temptation to stop raiding the public fisc;" that he "has a habit of singing from the Political Correctness hymnal;" and that he "has given the impression that [he] is more eager to please than lead, and that political opponents can get their way if they simply dig in their heels and behave like petulant trust-fund brats, demanding money and favor — now!"  So on Fox yesterday, when Chris Wallace asked, "How would you describe his brand of conservatism?  What kinds of issues animated him?" Cheney answered:

I frankly agreed with him on nearly everything, and I’m generally viewed as pretty conservative. I'm not sure that that’s saying something nice about Tony in some circles, but I always thought of him as a guy who understood very well the purposes of government and that they were limited, and that there were some things government shouldn't do that we are best able to do for ourselves. And I thought Tony was an effective articulator of that. He was a tough critic of the Bush administration. Before he came onboard as press secretary, he obviously had written some tough criticism of us.

07/14 09:06 AMShare